Read Grant Folio ws Knight Ruling
Page 35
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THREE vehicles and a tank trailer I. were added to the A licence held by G. Read (Transport), Ltd., Mitcheldean, last week, after they had agreed to drop the proposed normal user of " general goods, normally 100 miles." Instead, they stipulated the traffic for each vehicle, and promised to seek a new licence with a different normal user if more than 10 per cent. general goods were carried.
Mr. S. W. Nelson, Western Licensing Authority, complimented the British Transport Commission on the sensible and co-operative view they had taken of the application. Their interests were now closely safeguarded, he said, and the result of the case meant that the Transport Tribunal's decision in the Knight case had been implemented.
Mr. T. D. Copre, for Read, said that when they re-entered haulage after denationalization they bought British Road Services units costing £55,298, but some of these had since been sold. They now operated 29 vehicles, each of them earning about £3.800 a year.
The application was not based specifically on increased turnover and business, but on the fact that regular customers had work for a special type of vehicle which could be undertaken only by putting Undue strain on the existing fleet. Total revenue for the year ended August, 1957, was 1109,554, and £2,999 had been paid out for hiring. For the following year, turnover was £114,230, with an outlay of /1,427 on hiring. Mileage went up from lm. to 1,060,000.
Mr. George Read, managing director, was asked by Mr. A. W. Babe, for the B.T.C., why it was that in the 1956-57 figures traffic for Silver Roadways, Ltd., totalled £9,409, whereas in the following year it was £22,797. Mr. Read replied that two thirds of the earnings were for backloads, and only one-third for outward journeys.
Mr. Balne said the B_T.C. were vitally concerned with the application if the normal user was to be "general goods." However, if Read's were prepared to define the traffic for each vehicle on the normal user the objectors would be able to take a different view.
After an adjournment, it was announced that Read's were prepared to do this as follows: one vehicle, "mainly bulk grain, 100 miles, with a container one vehicle, "mainly quarried materials and coal, 75 miles, with a container "; one vehicle, "mainly bulk liquid and stone, 50 miles, with a 1-ton tank trailer."